100th Gresini podium strengthens Elías title charge

Toni Elías delivered the Gresini team a fantastic 100th podium in World Championship Grand Prix racing with victory at Brno on Sunday, completing a fantastic weekend for the Moto2 rider and his squad.

With his fourth win of the season the Spaniard lengthened his lead at the top of the Moto2 Championship to 55 points with eight rounds remaining, and was delighted with the continued progress.

“We’re very happy because we’ve taken another step forward in the Championship. It’s 100 podiums for Gresini, the team are doing a good job as are Moriwaki,” said Elías after his win and having contributed nine podiums to the collection.

“Before the race I knew I had a very good pace, and maybe that was the problem. At the beginning I was perhaps too relaxed but then when I saw Iannone pass me I stepped it up! I caught him and pulled away and finally took the victory,” added Elías, who won by a margin of 2.312s ahead of Yuki Takahashi with Andrea Iannone – now second behind him in the standings – third.

Next up is a track Elías is looking forward to racing on in the shape of Indianapolis, and the former MotoGP rider is targeting his first treble of back-to-back World Championship wins after the successive victories in Germany and Czech Republic.

“I like Indianapolis, it’s one of my favourite tracks. We’ll see how the bike feels there. We must improve in wet conditions because we suffered a lot (here). The situation is good overall though,” stated Elías.

“When I was a child I always liked America and it would be nice if in two weeks I could take a third consecutive victory.”